Last week, we studied some properties of the following finite linear dynamical system
where lives in
, where
. Let
be defined by
so that we can rewrite the state update equation as .
In the 1st installment, we obtained qualitative information about the dynamical system from visual inspection of its state transition diagram, which is clearly impossible for finite dynamical systems with state sets of sufficiently large cardinality. Thus, in this post, we will study the same dynamical system using only algebra. The goal is to see how far we can go without knowing what the state transition diagram looks like.
Before we embark on this journey, please take a good look at the addition and multiplication tables of the finite ring
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Time reversibility
Suppose there exists a matrix such that
, where
is the identity matrix. Then, left-multiplying both sides of the state update equation by
, we obtain
, which is equivalent to
. Hence, if matrix
exists, we can propagate the state backwards in time, and the dynamical system is time reversible.
Matrix equation can be written as
and, vectorizing both sides, we obtain a linear system of equations , i.e., we have
From the 4th and last equation, , we get
, as
in modulo 4 arithmetic. From the 3rd equation,
, we get
. The 2nd equation,
, becomes then
, which yields
. Finally, the 1st equation,
, becomes
. Let us define
. Hence, we have
which is the (left and right) inverse of matrix . We then have the (backwards in time) state update equation
. If we draw the state transition diagram for this linear dynamical system, we obtain the diagram we obtained last week, but with the direction of the arrows reversed. If you do not believe me, then define
and run the following Python script:
# define function g
def g (x):
g1 = x[1] % 4
g2 = (3 * x[0] + 2 * x[1]) % 4
return (g1, g2)
print "State transitions:\n"
for x1 in [0,1,2,3]:
for x2 in [0,1,2,3]:
print "g(%d,%d) = (%d,%d)" % (x1, x2, g((x1,x2))[0], g((x1,x2))[1])
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Fixed points
As mentioned last week, we can find fixed points of the dynamical system by solving the equation
. Since
in modulo 4 arithmetic, let us add
to both sides of the equation, which yields
, i.e.,
and, since one of the equations is redundant, we are left with , which is equivalent to
. The set of fixed points is, thus,
.
Fixed points are periodic points of period equal to 1. Let us now find periodic points of period greater than 1.
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Periodic points of period equal to 2
To find periodic points of period equal to 2, we must solve the equation , where
.
Once again, let us add to both sides of the equation, which yields
, i.e.,
and, eliminating the redundant equation, we are left with . Since
in modulo 4 arithmetic, we finally obtain the equation
. If we were solving equations over
, we could just multiply both sides of
by
and obtain
. However, we are working with the finite ring
, for which the element 2 does not have a multiplicative inverse! Let us write the equation for various values of
:
- if
, then we obtain the equation
, which yields
. We thus have points
and
.
- if
, then we obtain the equation
, which yields
. We thus have points
and
.
- if
, then we obtain the equation
, which yields
. We thus have points
and
.
- if
, then we obtain the equation
, which yields
. We thus have points
and
.
To summarize, we have eight periodic points of period equal to 2
of which, 4 points are fixed points. Removing these fixed points, we are left with 4 periodic points of fundamental period equal to 2
.
We finally conclude that the finite dynamical system under study has two cycles of length equal to 2, namely
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Periodic points of period equal to 3
To find periodic points of period equal to 3, we must solve the equation , where
.
Note that . Hence,
, and
. In order to solve equation
, let us (yet once again) add
to both sides of the equation, which yields
, i.e.,
and, eliminating the redundant equation, we are left with . Since
in modulo 4 arithmetic, we finally obtain the equation
. Fortunately, element 3 has a multiplicative inverse, which is itself (as
). Multiplying both sides by 3, we obtain
, an equation we solved already when looking for the fixed points. Since the only solutions of this equation are the four fixed points, we conclude that there are no periodic points of fundamental period equal to 3, i.e., there are no cycles of length 3.
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Periodic points of period equal to 4
To find periodic points of period equal to 4, we must solve the equation . Nevertheless, we know that
and, hence,
reduces to
, which is satisfied by every
, of course. In other words, every single point in the state set is a periodic point of period equal to 4. Some of them have fundamental period equal to 1, some others have fundamental period equal to 2. Removing from the state set these two sets, we are left with the periodic points of fundamental period equal to 4
.
We finally conclude that the finite dynamical system under study has two cycles of length equal to 4, namely
The hunt for periodic points is over. Since , equation
reduces to equation
, which we already solved. Likewise,
boils down to
, which we already solved too. We have found all the cycles.
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Concluding remarks
All the qualitative information about the finite dynamical system that we were able to obtain by taking a look at the state transition diagram can instead be obtained algebraically.
Last week, we found the solutions of the equations using sheer brute force, i.e., via exhaustive search over the entire state set. By contrast, in this post we actually did solve the equations using algebra. Intuitively, the latter should be computationally cheaper. If this is correct, then the question is: how much cheaper?



